In the world of the late racist provocateur Andrew Breitbart, facts did not matter. As spreaders of lies and smears targeting liberals and progressive organizations, Breitbart, along with his federally convicted Mini-Me, James O’Keefe, deserve a great deal of credit for poisoning the well of American politics.

The beauty part about operating in a fact-free world is that fact-checking does not matter, either. In that regard, Breitbart may be dead but his spirit lives at his website, which continues to publish the same sort of right-wing smears, lies and provocations that comprises Breitbart’s legacy.

The mistake published by Breitbart.com this week, however, was a real doozy: In a story criticizing Pres. Obama’s choice for attorney general, the editors confused Obama’s nominee, Loretta Lynch, the 55-year-old U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, with 82-year-old country star Loretta Lynn.

Given that fact-checking is not a thing in the fact-free right-wing media universe, the mistake is understandable The names are very similar.

Deleted: Breitbart.com deleted this story after it was found to have been sourced to a satirical news site.A little over a month after the website once operated by the late racist provocateur Andrew Breitbart published a story falsely accusing then-nominee for Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel of receiving funding from a foreign group called Friends of Hamas, now Breitbart.comn has been snookered by a post from a satirical site that suggested Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman had filed for bankruptcy:

Breitbart.com ridiculed Paul Krugman for filing for Chapter 13 bankruptcy protection in a since-deleted post whose claims originated with a satire website. Just last month, Breitbart.com castigated a news outlet for running with a story from that same website.

In the March 11 post, Breitbart.com editor at large Larry O’Connor mocked the Nobel Prize winning economist and New York Times columnist for his alleged financial mismanagement. Unfortunately for O’Connor, the report that Krugman went bankrupt is clearly a joke and originated from the satirical website The Daily Currant. O’Connor has since deleted the post without explanation. (Update: O’Connor tweeted, saying he “trusted Boston.com as the source for that Krugman piece, but they were duped by Daily Currant, therefore, so was I!”)

When Andrew Breitbart died unexpectedly in March 2012,* he was hailed by those on both the right and the left who lauded his “mischievous spirit and Barnum-esque knack for creating a stir.” But he wasn’t really like some little bad boy, he was a big bad boy, capable of mean-spirited and dishonest acts.

As this long-lost video shows, however, the only thing Breitbart really cared about was winning the argument and defeating — by any means — the monolithic, juggernaught-like LEFT, which seeks to impose “cultural Marxism” and “political correctness” on the poor little helpless right.

So watch the tape (not the whole thing, it’s 18:30), but enough to remind you of Breitbart’s ability to talk and never really say anything. Given the current level of discourse in this country — an environment ripe for Breitbart’s brand of creative video editing and aggressive smear campaigns — we’re better off without him.
* Thanks for the correction, Paula.

Jeez, we hate to speak ill of the dead — even when the newly deceased was an infamous right-wing racist provocateur who worked relentlessly to destroy the American democratic republic and replace it with a corporate plutocracy — so here are the few facts that are known now:

According to the Los Angeles County coroner’s office, Andrew Breitbart died “unexpectedly from natural causes” shortly after midnight at the UCLA Medical Center last night. He was 43.

Keith Olbermann condemns right-wing blogger Andrew Breitbart for promoting an inaccurate roundup of 17 alleged rapes at Occupy protests on his websites. The list, which fails to mention that the legitimate rape victims were Occupy supporters, comes on the heels of Breitbart screaming, “Stop raping people!” to a group of Occupy protestors at the Conservative Political Action Committee conference last weekend. “What Mr. Breitbart and his fellow propagandists have done, in fact, is to take at least eight women — eight members of Occupy who were raped or otherwise assaulted — and blame them for being raped,” says Keith.

At a tea party function in Boston, a sweaty, pacing, unshaven Andrew Breitbart says he sometimes dreams of civil war.

Breitbart is manic and occasionally incoherent in the video. He says he has been driven to violent fantasies about liberals only because he has been victimized by them. “‘Cuz I’m under attack all the time,” he says, citing an incident or incidents when “the tolerant call[ed] me gay” on Twitter. And, oh yeah, he gets death threats.

The left would like to initiate the war against him, he says, but they won’t because they know the U.S. military would side with him and the tea party. “I have people who come up to me in the military,” he says, “major named people in the military, who grab me and they go, ‘Thank you for what you’re doing, we’ve got your back.’ And so they [liberals] understand that. These are the unspoken things we know, they know.”

It was fun to be at the Madison capitol today to protest Sarah Palin and the tea partiers.

There were about 1,500 tea partiers, many bused in by Americans for Prosperity, the rightwing group funded by the Koch brothers.

The tea partiers were surrounded by about 3,000 or more pro-labor supporters, who let their presence be felt with raucous chants and boos and cries of “Shame, shame, shame!”

“Recall Walker,” the protesters chanted over and over again, as well as, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Scott Walker has got to go.”

Another chant was “Tax, tax, tax the rich!”

As with all the historic Madison protests this year, creativity marked the signs of the pro-labor activists.

“I Can See Waulkersha From My Sign,” one of them said, playing off of Palin’s gaffe about Russia, as well as governor Walker’s name and Waukesha County, where highly irregular vote counting occurred during the recent Supreme Court race…

The tea partiers waved their usual “Don’t Tread on Me” flags and held signs that said “Walker for President,” “Walker/Palin,” and “Economic Freedom.”

One tea party sign seemed anti-Semitic: “Give It Up, Kloppenstein!” It was referring to JoAnne Kloppenburg, the candidate who ran for the Supreme Court against David Prosser. Kloppenburg is Jewish…

Rightwing provocateur Andrew Breitbart stirred up the tea party crowd.

And when Sarah Palin was announced, the tea partiers gave her a big ovation, and the protesters booed heartily…

We have spent the past several days trying to make clear to you your limited role as a participant in our digital town hall to be streamed on ABCNews.com and Facebook. The post on your blog last Friday created a widespread impression that you would be analyzing the election on ABC News.

We made it as clear as possible as quickly as possible that you had been invited along with numerous others to participate in our digital town hall. Instead of clarifying your role, you posted a blog on Sunday evening in which you continued to claim a bigger role in our coverage. As we are still unable to agree on your role, we feel it best for you not to participate.

Pensito Review publisher, managing editor, and all-around senior person Jon Ponder took up my call to email David Ford, ABC News spokesperson, who is defending the network’s decision to include disgraced blogger Andrew Breitbart in their election night coverage. In a missive with the subject line, “Assume David Duke had to wash his sheets Tuesday night,” Jon emailed:

It is simply appalling that ABC News is giving a platform to Andrew Breitbart on election night. By his words and deeds, this man is a racist provocateur and should be shunned by decent people. Elevating him this way says more about ABC News — it frankly reeks of desperation — than it does about him.

If ABC News was hoping for a boycott on Tuesday night, and all the publicity that comes with it, I hope you get your wish.

Hopefully, this will inspire you to send Ford a piece of your own mind.

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear is set to live stream at noon on Saturday, Oct. 30. If you don’t have a TV (I feel ya, I don’t either) don’t despair. Just go to the Daily Show’s site and viola!

And speaking of spreading insanity and fear, if you’re up for multitasking while you watch I have an assignment for you. Send an email to David Ford, spokesperson for ABC News. Ford is the guy who’s being quoted justifying the network’s plan to include discredited blogger Andrew Breitbart in their election night coverage.

Asked about Breitbart’s history of unethical behavior and misinformation, ABC News’ David Ford told Media Matters: “He will be one of many voices on our air, including Bill Adair of Politifact. If Andrew Breitbart says something that is incorrect, we have other voices to call him on it.”

It’s not a matter of if Breitbart will say something incorrect, so for ABC to hide behind the fair and balanced trope by including people who don’t plan elaborate media lies isn’t exactly the same thing as providing the best reporting available.

Here’s what Ford lists as his email address on LinkedIn:

Update: Apparently there was an outpouring of criticism. Media Matters reports that the Breitbart has been shunted onto ABC’s online coverage on election night:

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Enumerati

40%

“President Trump came to Washington promising to ‘drain the swamp.’ But after less than 13 months, more than 40 percent of the people he originally picked for Cabinet-level jobs have faced ethical or other controversies. And the list has grown quickly in recent weeks,” the Washington Post reports.

Enumerati

$26 million

“President Trump’s inaugural committee paid nearly $26 million to an event planning firm started by an adviser to First Lady Melania Trump, while donating $5 million — less than expected — to charity,” the New York Times reports.

Enumerati

63%

A new Gallup survey finds 63% of Americans in hindsight say they approve of the way Barack Obama handled his job. “Gallup’s first measure of Obama’s retrospective job approval rating places him behind only John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan among the 10 most recent presidents. Richard Nixon is rated worst today for how he handled his job, with 28% approving.”

Enumerati

$30 million

White House budget director Mick Mulvaney told Congress that President Trump’s planned military parade would cost between $10 million and $30 million, the Washington Post reports.

Enumerati

15%

Gallup: “Congressional approval is now 15%, down slightly from an uptick to 20% last month after Congress passed tax reform in December. Positivity quickly faded this month as the government shut down twice in three weeks because of impasses over the federal budget.”

Poetic Justice

Trump’s budget, by human compassion, is unencumbered.
As usual, for the poor and working class, it’s a bummer.
And that ballooning deficit?
Our grandkids will pay for it,
Though Mick Mulvaney says he could have balanced it using “funny numbers.”

“You would be worried about Pence, We would be begging for days of Trump back if Pence became president. He’s extreme. I’m Christian, I love Jesus, but he thinks Jesus tells him to say things.”

Verbatim

“So I just made a statement, I’m a Christian that believes we ought to propagate our Christian faith. So I see an article and I retweet, ‘no more mosques in America,’ you know, and like, and share. So I retweeted it. So yeah. So what? I believe in Christian — I believe in liberties, freedom, free speech, and Christian values is kind of my base. And so yeah, I posted it, so no big deal. I’m not that stressed out over it.”

— North Dakota U.S. Senate candidate Gary Emineth (R), defending in a radio interview his sharing an image on Twitter that said no more mosques should be built in the United States.

Verbatim

“If he wants due process for the over dozen sexual assault allegations against him, let’s have Congressional hearings tomorrow. I would support that and my colleagues should too.”

— Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), slamming President Trump for his tweet questioning a lack of “due process” in abuse claims, saying that Congress could hold hearings about sexual misconduct allegations against him if he wanted due process, The Hill reports.